POO!

[Bulldog164]

Hi, I hope this is in the right section. I was wondering how you all manage the manure. At the moment mines in a big pile in the part of the garden I've not got to yet. What do you all do with yours? What compost bins do you use? Something home made would be ideal. Pics would be brilliant!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Part of it depends on how much bedding you have with it. Part of it is how often you clean it out. You’ll find we are all different because we have different conditions.

I use a droppings board under my roosts and scrape that off maybe every one to three weeks, depending on when I need to. Some people scrape theirs every day. Different situations. That gives me pure poop for my compost since I don’t put anything on the droppings board. Some people use PDZ or bedding on their droppings board so they don’t have pure poop. Some people use sand under theirs and scoop the poop with a kitty scoop.

The last time I cleaned the bedding out of my coop, it had been four years since I cleaned it out. I didn’t need to but I wanted that stuff on my garden. I put it directly in my garden when the season was over and tilled it in. By springtime it was ready to go. It’s pretty common for people to do this every fall but what can I say, I’m kind of lazy sometimes. Some people clean out their bedding every week or two, usually those small elevated coops in suburbia. They have legitimate reasons but they can wind up with pretty large stacks that are mostly bedding.

Composting can be as simple or complex as you want to make it. You can just pile it up and leave it alone. It will eventually break down as long as you live where it gets some moisture. In really dry climates that can take years. You really need the compost to be damp, not wet and not dry for best results. You don’t have your location in your profile so I have no idea what your weather is like.

On the other extreme some people carefully mix the right percentage of greens and browns and diligently turn it whenever it cools down. I don’t do that. I will water it if it gets dry and I might turn it once or twice. As I said, I can be lazy.

You can use bins if you wish. You can make those out of about anything. I had a lot of extra bricks laying around when I moved here so I made mine out of those. You can build them out of wood, build a wood frame and cover that with wire, or use anything else you want to. It’s not critical.

The way I do mine is that I have two bins side by side, maybe 4’ square and 18” high. I use one as the gathering pile. I toss kitchen or garden scraps in there to have it ready. The other bin is the working bin. When I finish one batch I layer in the stuff in the gathering bin, various grass and bulk garden wastes I save, and scrape my droppings board for chicken poop and start another. Up until maybe a month before I think it is finished, I dump the pure chicken poop onto the working pile, but after that put the pure poop in the gathering bin. I do occasionally stir the top of the working bin to keep the poop from building up too thick. If it gets too thick and wet, it can attract flies.

Maybe you can get some ideas out of this, but you have to tailor your program to your location and situation. Good luck!

 

[Bulldog164]

Wow that's brilliant. Your just like me, lazy lol I live in the uk, so WET. I scatter wood shavings on the floor of my coop, but I have been thinking of not bothering and doing what you do. That's some really good help you've given me, thank you. I've just finished building a small shelter to store straw in, as in going to start using that as it's much cheaper here. Looks like my next project is a two bin compost system

 

[Beekissed]

I don't ever clean mine out...the soil and deep litter in the coop just kind of eats the poop and it disappears. No smells, no flies, no poop build up. The insects and worms come up out of the soils to consume the poop and leaf litter in the deep litter and so it just composts in place.

 

[donrae]

I've not cleaned mine in over a year.....can't remember exactly how long. I plan to take all the bedding out this spring, more because I want to use it in the garden than because it's smelly. I do deep litter and don't really have an odor--I have noticed I need to clean the shelves my birds roost on, my coop is an old greenhouse and the birds roost on the shelves that are slats, so a lot of poop falls through, but enough has stayed on the slats to need cleaning. Again, it's been years since I did that.

When I've cleaned out my smaller coop, I've just put it on the garden bed in the fall and covered it all winter, tilled it in in spring. Everyone always comments on how great my garden looks. I give all the credit to the little bit of chicken bedding, and the tons and tons of horse manure!

 

[farmgirl02]

If you hold your nose when you go to collect your eggs, then think about how your chickens feel when they lay an egg! (haha) It is not hard to keep the coop clean, but I don't think that I would recommend cleaning it out only once a year... just my opinion, of course for people like me, who use hay.

I clean mine out every single morning.Not cleaning out the nest boxes will result in mucky eggs.

I put my poop strait in the compost bin right after in finish sweeping out all the muck. Chicken poop does help my garden tremendously .

The coop should be light and airy, not stinky and dirty.

I use hay, not deep litter,
so i have to clean it more often than you guys do.

I am thinking about doing the deep litter method, it sounds pretty cool.




By the way, I am not meaning to come off as saying, "your coop is sooo stinky", or anything! LOL
I just could not imagine what my coop would look like if I only cleaned it once a year!

 

[Beekissed]

Using deep litter does not mean it's stinky and dirty. I can't smell a thing in my coop, summer or winter. Deep litter is supposed to digest the manure and bind it with the litter materials and if done properly, it does this very well. It also provides a good culture for beneficial bugs and bacteria to grow and thrive, which inhibits the overgrowth of more harmful bacterias and molds, while also inhibiting the overgrowth of parasites. It provides extra nutrition for the flock, provides activities for when they are confined due to bad weather and also makes for insulation in winter time, soft landings when dismounting from the roosts, healthier footing in the coop and keeps the flies down in summer months.

It also makes for healthier chicks and adult birds. My coop stunk far worse when I raked it out every day than it does with deep litter.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Usually a smelly coop means it is wet, ventilation is poor, or that the poop load is too high, in other words you have too many chickens for the size of your coop. If the problem is that it is wet, that should be fixed. Keep the water out. It’s going to cause problems down the road. I think ventilation is very important in the health of a flock. If the problem is too many chickens, then a bigger coop, fewer chickens, or work harder to manage the problem.

I find that a dry, reasonably sized, well-ventilated, walk-in coop with a dirt floor with wood shavings and not overloaded with chickens isn’t hard to keep from smelling, especially since I have a climate and plenty of outside space so they don’t spend a lot of time in there to start with. That droppings board makes a big difference too. Other people will have other situations so will have to use different management techniques.

 

[donrae]

If you hold your nose when you go to collect your eggs, then think about how your chickens feel! It is not hard to keep the coop clean, but I don't think that I would recommend cleaning it out only once a year... just my opinion, of course.

I clean mine out every single morning.Not cleaning out the nest boxes will result in mucky eggs.

I put my poop strait in the compost bin right after in finish sweeping out all the muck. Chicken poop does help my garden tremendously .

The coop should be light and airy, not stinky and dirty.

I'm not sure where this is coming from--no one's holding their nose around here, that's for sure. Deep litter means there's no odor, no flies, and far less work--sounds like a win to me! I don't need to clean nest boxes out, I just add more shavings as needed. I have one hen that persistently poops on her egg, other than that, no problems.

I'm offended you're insinuating my coop is stinky and dirty.

 

[farmgirl02]

I'm not sure where this is coming from--no one's holding their nose around here, that's for sure. Deep litter means there's no odor, no flies, and far less work--sounds like a win to me! I don't need to clean nest boxes out, I just add more shavings as needed. I have one hen that persistently poops on her egg, other than that, no problems.

I'm offended you're insinuating my coop is stinky and dirty.